With nothing else working, President Barack Obama is asking religious leaders to help him sell the public on health care reform.

POLITICO listened in to an Oval Office conference call Tuesday, where Obama and top administration officials, beseeched thousands of faith-based and community organizations to preach the gospel on new insurance reforms, chiefly the Patients' Bill of Rights.

"Get out there and spread the word," Obama told leaders from across the religious spectrum on the conference call, organized by the Health and Human Services Center for Faith-Based and Community Partnerships.

1) I support the principle of separation of church and state. Hence, I think it's inappropriate for politicians of either major political party to attempt to enlist any kind of official religious backing (or opposition) to government policies.

2) I am also a supporter of abortion rights.

Hence, with respect to the Examiner OpEd, it is true that one serious problem with ObamaCare is that it compels people to pay for others' elective abortions against their will. But this is just an instance of the more fundamental problem -- namely that ObamaCare compels people to pay for all sorts of medical procedures (such as heart surgeries and colonoscopies) for others against their will.

About FIRM

America was founded on the principles of freedom and individual rights. Applied to medicine, the law must respect the individual rights of doctors and other providers, allowing them the freedom to practice medicine. This includes the right to choose their patients, to determine the best treatment for their patients, and to bill their patients accordingly. In the same manner, the law must respect the individual rights of patients, allowing them the freedom to seek out the best doctors and treatment they can afford.

Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM) promotes the philosophy of individual rights, personal responsibility, and free market economics in health care. FIRM holds that the only moral and practical way to obtain medical care is that of individuals choosing and paying for their own medical care in a capitalist free market. Federal and state regulations and entitlements, we maintain, are the two most important factors in driving up medical costs. They have created the crisis we face today.

Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine was founded by Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh, MD in 2007. It is now managed by Paul Hsieh, MD.